The mythical Rick Steves: Not a single family-run pensione on this 17-day Italy tour

If I had read something looking in a well-informed, objective manner at both the pros and cons of Rick Steves "Europe through the Back Door" tours, I would not have gone on the Best of Italy 17-day tour in 2015.*

   

Gorgeous Italy...

Rick Steves's Europe for Dummies

Piazza Navone on a lonely afternoon.

de Byzance (Hagia Sophia) et pas de Venise avec laquelle ses relations seraient toujours tres intimes.

A front-door critique of America's lauded tour operator.

A DISSENTING OPINION:
RICK STEVES'S "EUROPE FOR DUMMIES."

Unfortunately the tours are not at all same as watching the PBS series.

No, I am not a 62 year-old RS groupie...And neither does one really see Europe "through the back door" here.

Undoubtedly overhyped, with one tour guide suffering from burn out and latent to budding narcissism.  RS is theamazon.com, Dale Chihuly, or Starbucks of this niche travel sector, i.e., PBS viewers.  It is also awfully expensive for what you actually get.  Beware of the bandwagon!

There is strong evidence to be believe that negative reviews of trips on the RS site are removed.

If your group tour leader is someone who is not your "cup of tea (as in cloying-cutesy, sometimes condescending California girl)"--well, you are stuck with that person for the entire length of the trip, which in some cases can be 17 days.

It did not help matters, either, that on the very first day this tour guide disparaged--ridiculed, in fact--members of previous groups she had led.   A friend who knows several tour guides tells me that all they seem to talk about--but only among themselves--is how awful the people they lead on trips are.

Or that she warned the group that "if they expected X, Y, or Z...they were on the wrong tour." In fact, Rick Steves's only requirement is that people be under 80 years of age and that they can carry their own bags from the bus to the hotel.

When I accidentally left something at the hotel we had left just hours ealier, she did nothing to help me get it back.   In fact, she disappeared completely after lunch.  

With the unsinting and efficient aid of, first, the receptionist and, then, the owner of the hotel in Castleroc--the latter got on the phone and told them the name and address of the next hotel--, I got the article on its way (4 Euros, Italian post).  All it took that day was, after the receptionist had spoken to the hotel, was for the guide to forward the address...and slip a note under my door.

I don't believe our guide was telling the truth when she stated later on that she had twice telephoned the first hotel (the people at Castleroc had no trouble whatsoever phoning them).   Something was fishy.

I would like to take a stand against prejudice, conscious or unconscious, acknowleded or not.

She also made racially tinged references that I felt were insulting to the racial minorities (Asian-Americans) that were part of our group ("We have with us on this trip Americans, Canadians, Australians, as well as other groups").

Only God is her conscience.

But I had difficulty hearing anything she said after that, as my intuition told me that deep down she was pretty unhappy about having to deal with the individual problems of a group of 28.

A very shrewd business man Rick Steves is, I will concede.  He has written some moderately useful travel guides.    Judging from phone conversations I have had with his employees, I suspect he may not be the easiest man in the world to work for. 

He apparently is unaware of what actually transpires on his tours or doesn't really care unless it affects his bottom line.  But he does know that his buses do not have restrooms and that they do get stuck in traffic on the highways--though no where on his website does he mention these things.

I found it hilarious that the tour guide stated with a straight face that Steves, undoubtedly a multi-millionaire, still washes his laundry in his hotel room, etc.

At well over $300 per day--which only includes breakfasts, and half the dinners, as well as hotels, guides, and a bus driver (plane ticket you buy yourself), Rick the Jim Nabor-ish, boy-next-door turned businessman still feels obligated to charge for wine-tasting excursions or even bottled water.

From 2014 to 2015, the rates for RS tours were jacked up 12%, considerably higher than inflation.

The position of assistant tour guide was eliminated completely.

On the other hand, there is way too much time spent on a bus.  The 17-day "Best of Italy" tour was mostly a lot of rushing around from one monument to the next.

I would look at other tour companies:   Road Scholars, OAT, and Gate1.   The latter is at least a third less expensive while, the first is a respected nonprofit organization (Elderhostel).

RS Tours, despite the PBS imprimature, are lean on deeper cultural understanding.  

Those with a yen for a richer experience would be better advised to look elsewhere.  (Imagine a 17-day Best of Italy tour without mention of the word "opera" or Verdi.  On the other hand, "gelato" came up more than a dozen times).

In retrospect, you could learn a lot more by watching Youtube videos.  

The truth may be that much of Europe is not really worth visiting, unless you don't mind having an experience of a gazillion Chinese, American, etc. tourists, too, hyperkinetically snapping photos of all and everything. 

Tis a pity.

Les gens riches de ces croisieres sont aussi betes que les pauvres bourgeois qui se rendent en voyage touristique...

http://www.yelp.com/review_share/soTsxbVI0efrJcasIRRAZA/review/5lREorRH6W-ETxG0oXDq8Q?fsid=0bwlJW_8ngc21NOT1LzZbQ




* I probably would have gone with Road Scholars...or else alone.